the food stamp program. the bill that passed last month reduces programs by $4 billion. but the house bill debated today includes $16 billion in cuts. and at least one gop member, will offer an amendment to increase the cuts to $33 billion. frank luca is the chairman. >> the markup will reveen, consideration of hr 1683. at the point we broke for votes on the floor we were in title number four. with that the chair returns to the gentle lady miss fudge for recognition. >> i thank you mr. chairman. i have an amendment at the desk, amendment number 51. >> gentle -- amendment what? >> 51. gentlelady is recognized to explain amendment 51 whenever she's ready. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

let me say first it is my intention to withdraw this amendment but i certainly would like to be heard along with my colleague and hope that we can work together on this at some other point. mr. chairman, the purpose of the amendment is to ensure our nation's under served urban and rural communities have access to healthy food, that would authorize the development of a healthy food initiative at the department of agriculture. oir senate colleagues included the exact language when they passioned the farm bill a few weeks ago. the healthy food financing initiative will provide the critical assistance, our urban and rural communities need to access healthy and affordable food. by providing a one time grant and loan financing -- grocery stores, food cooperatives and farmers will be given the support they need to enter new

underserved markets and provide healthy groceries at an affordable price. hunger and obesity, both of these problems are a result of under served communities have limited or no access to healthy food. 23.5 million americans in low income communities lack access to a supermarket. this is nearly 8% of the entire population of the united states. for urban, minority and low income communities, they are limited to corner stores and high fat, high sugar fast food chains. i can walk down any street in inner city cleveland and throw a rock that will hit a gas station or fast food restaurant that serves processed food. if i live in inner city cleveland, i need to find a bus to take a grocery store. in rural communities, residents must drive for miles until they reach the nearest supermarket.

it is unacceptable that americans, american and rural alike, lack access to healthy food alternatives. this committee is already proposing to threaten a vital resource to our nation's underserved by making drastic cuts. authorizing the healthy food financing initiative is one essential step in helping our nation's poor have access to quality and affordable food. i thank you for participating with me on this and i yield back. >> lady yields back. does the gentlelady from maine seek recognition? >> thank you, mr. chair, i move to strike the last word. >> the lady is recognized for five minutes. >> i will be brief but i appreciate the gentlewoman from ohio for submitting this amendment and agree with her wholeheartedly and want to associate myself with her remarks. again, this is a great piece of language that i wish could go into the bill. it's actually modeled after a

similar program in pennsylvania and some of their facts and figures really prove out how useful this can be both in reducing obesity and assisting with people of low income and moderate means and those people who live in urban areas who often don't are access to healthy foods. in pennsylvania, since 2004, there's been a $30 million investment by the state to make this happen. and it is led to retail projects totally 192 million. the investment has grown tremendously, 88 healthy retail stores that have been created and creating 5,000 jobs, either created or retained in more than 500,000 people have access to healthy food. this shows stake holders from farms to the grocery industry and economic development, rural groups, it stretcheses across a broad spectrum. i'm sorry this amendment won't be voted on today but i appreciate mrs. fudge for

supporting it and wholeheartedly in support of her efforts and hope we can work on this issue in the future. >> gentlelady yields back. are there additional amendments for consider gs of title 4? >> amendment number 98. >> clerk will distribute amendment number 98. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is an amendment offering simply to create legislative record so that between now and when a final bill might come to fruition, we can work with you and others to correct what i believe is an overreach by the current bill. there's a section in this title that unilaterally penalizes convenience stores by kicking them completely out of the snap program. this amendment is bipartisan by the way, but joining me on this with this concern, these stores should be able to participate in the program or equal footing

with other stores. the sale of alcohol or tobacco products prohibited under snap and the stores can be removed from the program if they don't follow rules and regulations. these store would be simply removed because the products and sales that have nothing to do with the snap program. i don't think it's our role to design the snap program to police what stores sell. i would like to work with the chairman and ranking member and with the folks in my district 11 are interested in helping with the overall initiative of encouraging people to buy healthier more nutritious food. to kick them out of this program would deprive many shoppers who take advantage of lost leaders convenience stores put in place for a gallon of milk or loaf of bread who wouldn't be able to make the smart shopping decisions because a group here. if ip can get you and ranking members head nod we can work together, i'll be prepared to withdraw the amendment.

>> absolutely. the gentleman yield to me? >> yes. >> yes, the gentleman can be reassured of that. i understand the concerns he's raised from the convenience stores and it was not our intent to hurt any small business with this language. our principle concern was reducing fraud and yes, we, look forward to working with you and i believe you have the colleague over there who would like for you to yield also. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank mr. conaway for bringing this up. i want illustrate two points about the language currently in the bill. if one of my communities, there is a group of convenience stores owned by one particular company. and most of them do not offer food stamps but the ones that do are in the food sensitive districts what you would call the food desert. i know there's language that suggests you have to have a certain amount of mileage for a

food desert but you could have a food desert that is a half mile long and half mile wide. that's where this store offers those abilities for food stamps because it's called a dairy farm. so it -- in addition to beer and wine and tobacco offers milk and cheeses and that's what the store was designed for. i would home we can rework the language to get to the intent we want in the bill, but also to know not take away the ability to get the products they need. >> yield to the gentlemen from minnesota. >> i thank the gentleman from texas and associate myself with both colleagues, making sure we don't have fraud, waste and abuse in the system. on monday when i was coming out as a spot check, one of these convenience stores in my district, a gallon was $2.29 a bananas under 38 cents. that's significantly under the price and these things evolved

into being more than a place for alcohol and tobacco. and this particular convenience store runs its own dairy. this is a small like we're hearing there. i agree with the gentleman and hope we can work on that and move forward. >> yield to the ranking member. >> i don't have any problem but what i'm concerned about, i think what part -- i don't know for sure, but i assume what's driving this is the fraud we've had in the food stamp system has been the biggest problem we've had is with the store, not with the actual food stamp recipients, the stores we're having trouble with the ones who don't have an electronic system where they are just doing, you know, just write down or got an old cash register that just prints out a list or whatever. and you've got people going in there and they are making up a fictitious sales slip and splitting the money with their

buddy that has a food stamp card. so we don't want to undermine that. i think part of what the department is trying to do is clamp down. and i don't know what the solution is, if you're going to require the stores to have an electronic system so you can verify that they are actually selling food, you know, but we don't want to undermine that and create more problems in the system. i'm willing to work with you and see what we can work out. >> i thank the gentleman, the convenience stores are willing to work to make sure the fraud issue is addressed. we don't want to spank everyone in the system for the bad acts of a few. >> i want to associate myself with the remarks made. particularly in my district in mr. conaway's district, rural district, 29,000 square miles. in many of the communities, the local grocery store is gone now. and so what is left in many of those communities is just the convenience stores. so those convenience stores now

carry everything from oil to tools to, you know, all kinds -- and particularly in rural america now, it's an aging population. and in a lot of our older folks that live in those areas, they are faced with 20 miles may not sound like a lot to some people, but to our elderly that's a problem. i hope we can come up with something that works for everybody. >> mr. king? >> i thank the gentleman for yielding, i want to say there are 286 towns in my congressional district. i have been to every single one. there are quite a number that don't have a convenience store and there will be a greater number if this doesn't go on. i yield back. >> well i'm prepared -- consent to withdraw the amendment. unless somebody else wants to talk? >> okay. gentleman, asking to withdraw. >> see no opposition, so

ordered. >> i have anyone seeking recognition for amendment on this side of the room? gentleman from california. >> mr. chairman, i have two amendments i intend to withdraw, amendment recognized for five minutes to present his amendments. >> amendments 65 and 66. >> 65 and 66. thank you. >> and i move to strike the last word. >> the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, members. i appreciate the chair and the ranking members' willingness to work with me on these two amendments, and in that spirit of good faith, i withdraw the two amendments. this is really an attempt -- we've had a lot of discussion here with regards to the nutrition programs this afternoon. on something that i think in some ways i hope we can all embrace, which is reform of the system. it really involves federalism in its best sense to allow states

flexibility in operation of their tanf program, snap program that involves employment, education and training, employment and training together with efforts to get people back on their feet and no longer needing the assistance that these programs provide. it's patterned after an effort i've spent some time working with in fresno called the bridge academy. they have worked in the last 18 months with over 122 families, cases, in which they've had almost over 60% success rate at getting these individuals who were on assistance gainfully employed with good-paying jobs so they were no longer on assistance. and so that's what these two amendments do. they give the states greater flexibility in administering

their tanf program under both the employment and training efforts that are so critical to get people back on their feet for jobs that exist today, not for jobs that no longer exist. the way it does it on the first amendment is to -- intended to broaden the eligibility requirements to those who can receive assistance while at the same time limiting the amount of funds that can be spent -- expended on behalf of that participant. as the food nutrition act of 2008 was written, only a program state agencies are prohibited from spending s.n.a.p. on the employment and training funds on those participants in tanf, this would provide that greater flexibility. therefore, the amendment is intended to provide an exception to the limitation for programs that are shown to raise nutritional levels of low-income families, and therefore, to increase their self-sufficiency as s.n.a.p. recipients. the second amendment is less

complicated. it is intended to provide the states with greater flexibility in how to choose to make use of supplemental nutrition assistant programs, s.n.a.p., under the employment and training segment of s.n.a.p. if such programs are determined to not only increase the nutritional levels but increase self-sufficiency of those individuals who are on the program. this is what the bridge academy has done in fresno, and it's with this flexibility they have been able to get people off of assistance over the last 18 months. finally, it's necessary for the second amendment for me to mention that these are not advocating for any additional funds. whatever the funding level that we ultimately agree of in a bill that passes this house and gets -- comes out of conference, it wouldn't change any of that. any additional funds to be used for employment and training under s.n.a.p., because the

resources that are available for these innovative efforts will come from the flexibility that we would give them for the states on how they can best establish to spend already allocated funds. that's the sense of the two amendments to provide greater flexibility, to have a higher success rate of using the employment and training segment under tanf to get people off of assistance, to help them get the helping hand off assistance, to train them for real jobs that exist today. and with that, i will ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendments hopefully we can continue to work together, mr. chairman, and the ranking member to give states flexibility under the notion that i think we all embrace, and that is one size doesn't fit all. >> the gentleman has that assurance. the gentleman's withdrawal is appreciated and the gentleman yields back the balance of his

time. are there any additional amendments? >> mr. chairman? >> i believe that we will go with the gentleman, and then if there's democrat then we'll go mr. hillscamp and then come back around. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have an amendment at the desk, designated amendment number 89, formerly the goodlatte amendment. >> the gentleman may proceed with his explanation. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this amendment is pretty clear and simple, and it says, and i'll just read from it, none of the funds made available to the commonwealth of puerto rico under this sub paragraph may be used to provide nutrition assistance in the form of cash benefits. and as the rest of the country is under the ebt card and no cash benefits, that's what this amendment seeks to do from puerto rico, and since 2002, puerto rico has received a special treatment, and the receipt of nutrition assistance for puerto rico. in order to address the inability of '02 of some food

retailers to process ebt cards, the government agreed to a 25% payment to puerto rico in cash. and today, the merchants in puerto rico have the technology and the ability to process this electronically, because they passed a tax provision to collect a sales tax in puerto rico, so now the retailers do have the ability to process these ebt cards electronically. there's no longer a need for a 25% cash as a component of this. but there is, though, in puerto rico a massive waste and fraud associated with these cash payments. the usda verified there is nearly $350 million in waste fraud associated with the puerto rican program, including nonfood items such as cigarettes, alcohol and other nonfood products. we simply cannot afford this kind of waste. we're fast approaching a national debt of $16 trillion and yet the federal government

still brose over 40 cents on every dollar it spends. the cash that is handed out, much is used for the wrong purposes. the data that i've seen, the $350 million, the usda's report, is about 70% of that that's distributed in cash has been identified by the usda report as being potentially fraudulent or waste and abuse. and so this is a simple amendment. it conforms with at least the philosophy of the broader payments under ebt cards that go to the rest of the country, and puts puerto rico under that role. and i would acknowledge that the representatives of puerto rico have been vigorous and vocal. and i understand some of their concerns. i think part of it is perception and little of it is policy. and i would suggest that if this amendment becomes part of the underlying bill, that we have an opportunity to hear a little bit more from the representatives of puerto rico. but i don't know that any of us can justify cash payments when we know that that 70%

potentially are going for purposes other than the intent of the nutrition assistance program that underlies this. so i would urge adoption of this amendment, and yield back the balance of my time. >> the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. i believe the ranking member seeks recognition. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'll have the last word. >> the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. >> i thought you guys were for grants, you know? i have to oppose this amendment. for one thing, puerto rico is not realistic. there is no way they're going to implement a ebt system in that country. it's not going to happen. it's not realistic. there's been these proposals from your side to do block grants. so does that mean if we ever went down that road we would have everybody complaining that this state does that and that

state does this? they're getting the same kind of money under the system, and if we're going to block grant, they should be able to run it the way they want. so -- and i just don't think you're going to be able to implement an ebt card in puerto rico. it's mountainous. they don't have the technology, the hook-ups. it's just not realistic. so i oppose the amendment. >> do you yield back your time? >> i yield back, or i can give -- you want your own? okay. okay. i'll yield to the gentle lady from ohio. >> thank you, very much. mr. chairman, this committee, to my knowledge, has not discussed the potential impact of this change with puerto rico. there have been no hearings held to understand their perspective. and without more information, it would be premature, in my opinion, to impose such a significant change on the commonwealth and the safety net of puerto rico.

given puerto rico's incredibly high poverty and unemployment rates, the committee should proceed with caution. and i would suggest we oppose this amendment before disrupting this only safety net program for puerto rico. the poverty rate and the unemployment rate in puerto rico are very high. in 2010, puerto rico's official poverty rate was 45%. 45%. of the island's unemployment rate in may was 14.2%. i would move to -- i would say that we should oppose this amendment, because i do believe it is premature. thank you so much, mr. ranking member. >> the gentleman yields back. the gentleman -- mariannis? sorry, i got out of order here. i actually -- i intended to recognize -- coming back to you. recognize the gentleman from california, mr. backa, and we'll come back and -- >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. move to strike the last word.

>> recognized for five minutes. >> i also oppose this amendment, on behalf of my good friend, peter list key, who is not here and cannot be in this committee. but for the reasons that my following colleagues indicated earlier. not only have we not had the opportunity to discuss with puerto rico and the effects and changes it would have, but this amendment could highly be disrupted to puerto rico's safety net. puerto rico doesn't have other safety net programs like ssi or meaningful cash assistance programs in the absence of other federal programs such as ssi, the cash portions of that benefit has assumed an important beyond nutritional assistance. it is not clear what the impact of moving to a pure ebt program would be to retailers, and retailers who are not certified or capable of accepting ebt cards, particularly small businesses and food markets in rural areas could be adversely affected. given puerto rico's incredibly

high poverty and unemployment rate, the committee should proceed with caution before disrupting its largest safety net program. poverty and unemployment in puerto rico are very high. in 2010, puerto rico's official poverty rate was 45% versus 15% for the united states. the island unemployment rate may be 14.2%. the next highest was nevada at 11.6. these changes could increasingly increase trafficking, given that these are virtually no other forms of cash assistance on the island, moving to a food-only program could result in a more houseful trafficking than benefits to the purchase of its life assistance essential such as the -- will disappear in basic toiletry. before making such a change, integrity should be assessed. i ask my colleagues to vote no on this. i believe the language and the intent may be good, but in the

long run, it's going to hurt a lot of the urban areas and others because the safety net is not there. i yield back the balance of my time. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizeses the gentleman from texas, mr. naggel bauer for a motion -- request, i mean. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to associate myself -- i think mr. king -- >> move to strike the last -- >> strike the last word. >> recognized for five minutes. >> with that, i think mr. king has a response to comments that have been made. and i yield my time to him. >> i thank the gentleman from texas for yielding. and in response to the rebuttals that have been offered here, i would point out to the committee that 25% of the nutrition assistance program in puerto rico is cash benefits. 75% of it is processed some other way. most of it, if not all of it, by processing electronically. and here's the information that i have, going into this hearing this morning. prior to 2006, many merchants

could not reasonably acquire the technology to process ebt cards to accept s.n.a.p. benefits. but in 2006, the commonwealth's legislature replaced the excised tax on imports with an island-wide sales tax. to implement and administer the sales tax, every merchant had to have point of sale terminals capable of processing ebt cards. this choice of whether to accept ebt and participate in the n.a.p. program is still the merchant's, same as in the continental united states, but the technology is now affordable and widely available, eliminating the need to provide n.a.p. recipients, nutrition systems program, with a cash benefit. unless someone can document to me this information is incorrect, the rebuttals they can't utilize, 100% ebt cards are incorrect. and i take the stand that for us to be be sitting here nearly $16 trillion in debt and watching new programs be offered, even

before the ag committee, and watching cash be handed out in lieu of an electronic benefits transfer card, that at least has some limitations on the fraud and the abuse that comes with it, you know, no human being is perfect. and if you hang the cash out in front of them, you know it's going to be spent for things other than its intended purpose. we know that ebt cards are discounted for cash for the purposes of buying things that ebt cards can't be used for that. will still go on in every state in this union, it will go on in puerto rico after this amendment goes on. but i don't know how we can in good conscience, knowing the information that i've just provided here, do anything other than close down this loophole that i think was a mistake when it was offered back in the year that it was -- it went into law. so, again, i urge the adoption of my amendment. i think i responded to the criticism of the opponents of this amendment, and i would yield back to the gentleman from texas. >> and i yield back. >> the gentleman from texas yields back his time. i believe the gentleman from the

northern mariania seeks recognition. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> gentleman moves to strike the last word in his -- >> i move to strike. >> five minutes. >> thank you. mr. chairman, the amendment of -- puerto rico. it should be opposed on the basis of fairness alone. in addition, it would be bad policy, as it would actually harm low-income families and the elderly in puerto rico by restricting their ability to obtain nutritional goods. the discussion should rest on several things. but since 1982, and as a result of congressional decision, the government of puerto rico administered a limited nutrition assistance program that is specifically tailored to best respond to the dietary needs of its low-income residents. this is in territories and participation in entitlement program in 50 states, the district of columbia and virgin

islands. in exchange for its exclusion from s.n.a.p., congress gave the government of puerto rico the flexibility it needed to design its program as it best sees fit insofar as finds its element to be consistent with the goals of the food and nutrition act and in line with the principles of s.n.a.p. and the government of puerto rico, i understand, has worked diligently to administer its program. there are no problems with program operation with fns. but requiring a ebt, this amendment would take away the means for elderly participants that reside in rural and most remote municipalities of puerto rico to redeem their benefit and access nutritional foods. many mom and pop stores are the primary means by which u.s. citizens living in puerto rico can access food,